Lawyer markets and good conversations.

Today it is official. There is nothing happening in Pakistan according to European and Western media. I know this is true because the Germans are leaving, the French are leaving and I want to leave…not really but I am a bit bored. Which is to say I am getting lazy. Yesterday I spent a few hours with a French photographer name Hughes (You-gh, I only found out after calling him “Hughes” for almost a week) and we pretty much just walked around the District Court area wandering the open-air stalls where Lawyers work on old PCs and have printers and copiers sitting openly. Its pretty cool really. Imagine your local green market or Christmas time outdoor gift area with stalls and walkways but instead of organic produce or strange wooden crafty things you choose a lawyer.
It sounds like I am making fun of them but I assure you I am not. If only the New York City Central Booking building had a lawyer market I might have been able to avoid my own legal issues a few years ago. Its centralized marketing at its finest!
What you need, when you need it, with hundreds of choices at your disposal. Then again the cops may lead you out of the jail in shackles and stop and have tea with prisoners shackled to each other sitting next to them. Its fairly surreal but it seems to work.
Next Hughes and I heard about yet another press conference about the election but this one was being help by the PML-N (Nawaz Sharif party) to discuss election rigging in the Baluchistan province. So off we went. Somehow we were the only western media there. Which we took to mean one of two things. We beat EVERYBODY or more likely, no one cared. Suddenly there were Pakistani camera crews jockeying for space around us, shooting over us while we shot, around us, even filming us shooting the press conference. This, along with the entire thing being covered in Urdu (which makes total sense of course) we had no idea what “proof” was being presented but we left as soon as was polite. Then we jetted to another press conference at PPP leader Asif Zadari’s house nearby and were most certainly NOT the only ones there. This time we were stuck in the back behind the TV crews but I still had fun. In the end the shooters getting paid or on contract show up…shoot the hell out of it and get out in a few minutes to file the images.
Since Hughes and I are not with an Agency we are not so hurried.
In fact yesterday we wandered around the market near my hotel for an hour or so and met a young man names Danish (Din-ish) who conversed with us for almost an hour. Danish was born in Pakistan but moved to Europe when he was three and his Muslim parents put him through a Christian missionary school. He was a practicing Christian for 16 years he said until one day he wanted to know more about his parents religion and began to study the Koran and Islam where after he converted back to Islam. His English was perfect; his manners were typical of Pakistan, asking us to have tea with him while we talked about everything from the election to societal problems in Pakistan and how Islam and the US are viewed in the world. Once Hughes and I realized we were running late for the press conference we politely excused ourselves to leave. Danish gave me his phone number, card and asked if he could give me his English/Arabic translation of the Koran for me to read. I politely refused, he insisted…I agreed. I took care to hold out my right hand to receive the Koran as well as ask if it would be rude of me to place it in my bag while I carry it throughout the day? He laughed and said that he and the other men talking with us were not THAT kind of Muslims, they told me the meaning of the Koran is holy. The book in my hand was just paper and ink. Respect the meaning but to have some many rules about the book itself was akin to idol worship. Which he reminded me is forbidden in all three of the holy books (Koran, Talmud and the Bible). It was a great conversation and I hope to have a few more with him during my stay in Pakistan. It might be interesting to mold that idea into a story somehow on moderate Islam and how the countries ills are impacting the lives of everyday people. (No one better steal that story or I will break your legs.)
I am trying to work on a few smaller stories while I am just sitting here, one possibly being on the small but functioning Christian population of Pakistanis through out the country, another on people who work on the streets IE, street barbers, typists, copy machine operators, shoe shiners, food vendors etc. there seems to be little you cant get done on the street. I buy more cell phone credit by walking up to a guy at a stall with a stack of cell phones, each with a different carrier and pay him to transfer credit to my phone number via his. I am told its cheaper than buying credit from the company via pre-paid cards but I don’t care the difference is less than .25 cents for me. I do it because it’s cool to me.
I am hopeful that the mass exodus of media will give me a bit more latitude with expenses (more media = higher prices), stories and therefore possible coverage of things that may happen after people have moved off completely from the election and Pakistan. Honestly that should probably have happened by the time the results came in and no one blew himself or herself up in protest.
Today there is one more press conference where Nawaz Sharif will meet with PPP leader Asif Zadari to discuss working together to gain the 2/3rds majority to oust Musharraf. I am still working on getting a portrait of Imran Khan and I am channeling around to get a portrait of Nawaz as well. We shall see.

I will post a few images of what hass been happening so you folks can see what I have been up to.

which is less exciting aparently than the three teenage boys in the cubicle next to mine in the internet cafe who are OBVIOUSLY looking up porn. they are terrified i will rat them out. which of course i just did...but only to you guys...so dont tell anyone else. ok.